Saturday, September 12, 2020
Kapporus and adultery
https://agudah.org/agudath-israel-reissues-kaporos-kol-korei-2/
R. Shmuel Kamenetzky clearly signs his name on a קול קורא stating that ladies and gentlemen should be separated during כפרות, which is a חומרא בעלמא. How much more so must Ms. Epstein move away from Mr. Fleischer, which is not a חומרא בעלמא, but a דין of יהרג ואל יעבור, as explained here:
Friday, September 11, 2020
Trump rally attendees open up to Lawrence Jones about their support: 'He tells it like it is'
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-rally-attendees-lawrence-jones-michigan-biden
Attendees of President Trump's Thursday rally in Michigan told "Hannity" election correspondent Lawrence Jones that they support the Republican because he "tells it like it is."
"Why are you supporting the president?" Jones asked one woman wearing a "MAGA" hat.
"Because he tells it like it is," she answered. Two other women told Jones that "he's real." One man indicated that Trump "tells the truth."
Tucker Carlson accuses Lindsey Graham of convincing Trump to talk to Woodward
Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Wednesday accused Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) of convincing President Trump to sit for interviews with Bob Woodward for the journalist's forthcoming book "Rage" that reveals remarks by the president downplaying the coronavirus threat publicly while acknowledging its severity in private.
Why Trump talked, though he feared an ‘atrocious’ book from Woodward
https://www.foxnews.com/media/why-trump-talked-though-he-feared-an-atrocious-book-from-woodward
For all his attacks on fake news, Trump on some level craves the approval of the establishment media. He recently spent 40 minutes talking to a New York Times reporter, despite years of attacks on his hometown paper as biased and “failing.” And who is more of an establishment Beltway figure than Woodward?
But as officials in the Nixon, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43 and Obama administrations learned, charming Woodward is a strategy that only goes so far. It’s hard for officials to say no to him when you realize you’ll be in the book anyway and many of your colleagues, and rivals, are probably cooperating.
But Trump’s calculation wasn’t all wrong. Although his coronavirus comments sparked a media explosion, the book is filled with lengthy presidential quotes, making the case on issues from the pandemic to race relations to foreign policy.
Trump twists history of Churchill and FDR to cover up pandemic denialism
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/11/politics/donald-trump-churchill-fdr-pandemic/index.html
President Donald Trump is now not just downplaying the coronavirus -- he's resorting to absurd historical allusions about great World War II leaders to try to disguise his culpability in 190,000 American deaths.
Thursday, September 10, 2020
Bnei Brak mayor apologizes for 'bad joke' train video
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/287018
Bnei Brak Mayor Avraham Rubinstein issued an apology Thursday evening in response to the uproar over a video in which an actor pretended to block haredi passengers from boarding a train from the predominantly-secular city of Bat Yam.
"I am sorry for the way things happened, in particular I am sorry for the damage to the good name of the railway workers and the Transportation Ministry," Rubinstein said.
The video was commissioned by the Bnei Brak municipality through a public relations office, with the aim of protesting the removal of the city from the light rail programs in the Gush Dan region.
The actor stood between the haredi passengers and the train, physically preventing them from boarding, and proclaimed: "Haredim, do not board!"
US official claims pressure to downplay intelligence reports
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54096520
An intelligence analyst at the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said he was put under pressure to downplay the threat of Russian interference in the 3 November election as it "made the president look bad".
In a whistleblower complaint, Brian Murphy said he had been demoted for refusing to alter reports on this and other issues such as white supremacy.
The directives were illegal, he said.
The White House and DHS have both denied the allegations.
US intelligence agencies concluded that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election but President Donald Trump has rejected allegations that his election victory was influenced by Russia, at times questioning findings from his own agencies.
Mr Murphy says he was under pressure from the White House to exaggerate the number of migrants with links to terrorism at a time when the administration was implementing tougher measures to halt the flow of undocumented migrants reaching the US-Mexico border, and making the case for a wall.